Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1. 1935

Letter ID: 1377

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

July 16, 1935

[Regarding a certain incident that had recently occurred]

I was under the impression that Mother could at once know of such things. Some even say that she knows everything – all that is material or spiritual. Others maintain that she knows when the question of consciousness is involved, e.g. sex movements etc.. but not so much about material things.

Good Lord! you don’t expect her mind to be a factual encyclopaedia of all that is happening on all the planes and in all the universes? Or even on this earth – e.g. what Lloyd George had for dinner yesterday?

Questions of consciousness of course she always knows even with her outermost physical mind. Material facts she can know but is not bound to do it. The matter however is too complex for answer in a short space.

What would be true to say, is that she can know if she concentrates or if her attention is called to it and she decides to know. I often know from her what has happened before it is reported by anyone. But she does not care to do that on a general scale.

But if she does not know, what really is the meaning of your message: “Always behave as if the Mother was looking at you, for indeed she is always present”?

It is the emanation of the Mother that is with each sadhak all the time. In former days when she was spending the night in a trance and out working in the Ashram, she brought back with her the knowledge of all that was happening to everybody. Nowadays she has no time for that.

This question of Mother’s knowledge became even more interesting for me today. She gave me the flower signifying “Discipline”. I began to wonder why this particular flower was given; at last I remembered that yesterday I had taken some hot khichuri with J and N.

In this respect the Mother is guided by her intuitions which tell her which flower is needed at the moment or helpful. Sometimes it is accompanied by a perception of a particular state of consciousness, sometimes by that of a material fact; but only the bare fact, usually – e.g. it would not specify that it was hot khichuri that was cooked or how J or N came in. Not that that is impossible, but it is unnecessary and does not happen unless needed.

... If not this, what is meant by “Discipline” in Yogic parlance? Anyway please tell us how far Mother and you know about our physical, material affairs.

In this case it was a general hint with a special reference to khichuri.